Summons

Started: 2004-03-31 08:09:05

Submitted: 2004-03-31 08:29:44

Visibility: World-readable

In yet another fascinating turn of events, I've been summoned for jury
duty at the United States District
Court for the District of Colorado. (Page uses Java and frames for
navigation for some reason I can't quite comprehend; your navigability
may be difficult. While I'm critiquing web design, I'll point out the
obnoxious animated gifs.) I'm in the jury pool for the month of April
and won't know if I'm supposed to show up until I call each Friday
afternoon during the month. This court, in Denver, is the lowest court
that hears cases regarding federal law. Its website asserts it deals
primarily with civil cases, although two high-profile criminal cases have
been tried at it recently: it handed down a death sentence for
Timothy
McVeigh and is currently trying
various
Qwest executives for fraud that allegedly occurred on their watch.

Last year, I observed that I was in the perfect situation to take jury
duty: I had nothing to do and was moping around the house mostly feeling
sorry for myself. I still want to believe that jury duty could be an
educational experience in civic duty, but I'm dubious about getting
stuck on a lengthy jury, such as the one in New York that has been
hearing arguments about fraud at Tyco for the past six months and is
having trouble reaching a verdict. (My employer won't give me time off
separate from my vacation time for jury service. Jury compensation is a
whopping US$40 per day, far less than I make in a standard working day.
As a federal juror, I have employment protection rights, but the link is
broken on the jury information page.) Gem would be ideal for jury
service right now, but she's not the lucky one who got picked.

I feel myself wearing out at work; I need to take a break. Before being
summoned, I made a first pass at scheduling my vacation time during 2004
and decided to take a day off in April. Now that I have no idea when
I'll be required to show up for jury duty, if I'll be required at all, I
haven't scheduled anything. My best-case scenario is to be summoned for
a day or two, hand down a verdict in a simple case, get a nice break
from work, take vacation time for those days, and return refreshed. (I'm
not holding my breath, but it'd be nice if that happened.)